Matriculation students receive foster-parenting care

LABUAN – Totally convinced by the exhortation of Pope Francis in Evangelii Gaudium to live out the call of an evangelizing community, the Marvellous Light of Yahweh Covenant Community (MLYCC) took a leap of faith to reach out to 600 Catholic students currently studying at Labuan Matriculation College in providing foster-parenting care.

MLYCC picked up a sense of urgency and a revival of missionary spirit at the recently held Fellowship of Malaysian Covenant Communities at Kota Kinabalu Jul 4-6, where the Evangelii Gaudium was made relevant to the covenant communities in living out their missionary and pastoral call.

MLYCC, one of the nine existing covenant communities in Malaysia, exists and serves the parish of Blessed Sacrament Church Labuan.  Its membership comprises of 9 families, making up of adults, youths and children.

In response to the plight of Catholic students who are being subjected to various forms of harassment and conversion ploys to convert to change their religion, MLYCC mooted the idea of foster parenting after consultation with the parish priest, who gave his full blessing.

Many of these young students are from the interiors of Sabah and Sarawak and have to undergo much cultural adjustment being away from home for the first time.   In their vulnerability they become an easy target of these subtle conversions of underage children.

Parishioners are challenged to offer their homes to such students during the times they come out for weekends and college breaks.

Foster homes offer a stable and Catholic environment to the students, especially those who could not afford to travel back and forth during weekends and longer breaks.

So far 45 families have volunteered to foster the students.

Parents whose children are planning to study in Labuan institutional learning centres are encouraged to get in touch with Blessed Sacrament to put your child in good  Catholic foster-parent care.  Contact Betty Teo @ 012-8338222, Alice Wong @ 019-8503677, and  Dorothy Thomas @ 016-8310924 for more details. – Betty Teo